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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

Martina Harris is taking lessons learned from her mother to bring back the flavor of a former Maplesville restaurant that is making customers reminisce. Martina Harris opened Martina’s Grill on July 15 in Maplesville to bring another restaurant to an area that does not have many readily available options.

Martina’s Grill is the first establishment Martina Harris has owned and operated, but cooking has been a part of her life since she was a small girl. Her mother, Barbara Harris, is a local legend in Maplesville for her cooking as the lead cook at the old BNR restaurant that operated in town during the 1990s. Martina and others in her family cooked with Barbara as they grew up, and Martina quickly grew into her own as a cook. She cooked for over 30 people on Sundays between family and friends, and that sparked them to inspire her to sell her food to the public.

“My nephew told me I could sell my plates of food,” Martina Harris said. “I watched my mom do it, and she is a legend here in Maplesville. I am trying to bring BNR back to Maplesville, and a lot of people have picked up on it. My mom has cooked her whole life and I have watched her, my sisters cook and cooking is in our family background and DNA.”

Martina’s Grill has been open for just over one month, and customers are already picking up on the tastes of the food and connecting them to those tastes of the old BNR restaurant that has been closed for well over 20 years. Customers ask Martina if she was the little girl that hung around the restaurant when they came in during the 90s, and she confirms she is.

“My whole process and everything I get is based on how (BNR) was and how it was run,” Martina Harris said. “I know people enjoyed the food, I know the people here and I have been here my whole life.”

Martina’s Grill got its start inside of a food truck in 2023, and the truck would sell out of food at each event it went to. Only three months into the food truck, Martina was already taking the steps towards getting her own building for a restaurant. Then, in December 2023, Martina said she got a calling from God. He said that the building in Maplesville that Heards BBQ & Soul Food occupied at the time would be hers in the near future.

Martina did not tell anyone because of the building being occupied at the time. However, after the start of the calendar year, Heards announced they were getting their Clanton location going. A few months later, they moved on from their Maplesville location, and that building that Martina was told would be hers was now available.

Within four months, Martina’s vision went from a calling to reality.

“I never thought about me owning a building,” Martina Harris said.“I was content with selling out of a food truck, I had a job and I was fine, but that push got me here.”

Martina believes the restaurant is allowing her mother to live her dream through her. Barbara could have created and established her own restaurant in the past, but Martina believes she did not want all of that load on her. Now, Barbara can watch her daughter take on that task and help her as needed along the way. She is a perfectionist and critiques Martina on some occasions, but Martina always knows she is making her mom proud.

“She is getting to see her daughter operate this, so I know it is very special to her,” Martina Harris said. “My mom is very special, and she knows a lot of people, and when I talk to her I say ‘Mom, I am riding on your back.’ Whenever people find out I am her daughter they say ‘Well the way she could cook, I know you can cook.’ She has really been my backbone.”

Martina’s Grill offers traditional grilled foods such as hamburgers, cheeseburgers, patty melts and fried chicken wings. They also have local favorites like hot hamburgers and BLT sandwiches, and are introducing Soul Food Sundays where Barbara Harris will be cooking for customers.

“She is just like her mom, a spitting image of her,” Miracle Works, Martina’s Grill customer, said. “She has great food, great service and I have been coming ever since she opened. We are so proud of Martina that she got everything up and going.”

Martina’s Grill rode the positive reviews and customers it had from the food truck and carried it over to the restaurant in Maplesville. Now, Martina and her staff are full force into the establishment serving customers in droves. The restaurant has been flooded with customers during its first month of operation, and the staff has been surprised and blown away at the support they have received.